This invention relates to apparel for facilitating a mother's nursing of her child while minimizing the exposure of her breasts, and more particularly to attractive blouses, dresses or similar outer garments having disguised openings through the breast portions thereof.
It is generally important to a mother when nursing her child that it may be accomplished conveniently, to minimize the discomfort to her child and its interference with her other activities, and with an appropriate degree of modesty, particularly when the nursing takes place within the view of other persons. It is therefore helpful to a nursing mother to wear apparel which is structurally designed to provide nursing convenience and maintain modesty, yet which is attractively disguised to belie its role in facilitating nursing.
Numerous types of apparel have previously been designed for facilitating nursing to some degree. For example Meyers U.S. Pat. No. 3,611,439 discloses a nursing gown which utilizes a pair of breast-covering panels which are detachably secured at their tops and fixedly secured at their bottoms for swinging downwardly to uncover the wearer's breast for nursing. However, due to the shape and structure of the panels and particularly the straps which support the front of the garment when the panels are folded down, which together form a deep V-neckline, the appropriateness of the gown is somewhat limited to use as a nightgown or a formal gown, and it would not ordinarily permit use as casual or every-day working wear nor provide any appreciable degree of protection against breast exposure when a panel is folded down. Marino U.S. Pat. No. 3,176,692 discloses a bra-slip which provides a pair of outer breast-covering flaps which swing downwardly to expose the wearer's breast for nursing, but this apparel is designed as an undergarment, not outer wear, and accordingly the function of the breast-covering outer flaps and their attachment mechanisms is outwardly apparent and unattractive. Also, Crane U.S. Pat. No. 1,626,024 discloses a dress which facilitates nursing by providing an elongate narrow opening, over at least one breast portion, which is covered by a flap resembling a handkerchief pocket. The flap is stitched along one side to the dress and attached by several clasps at the other side so that it may be folded to the stitched side to expose the opening for nursing. While this approach lends some attractiveness to the dress by disguising the breast opening with a pocket, the sideways opening of the flap is inconvenient since it must be held open by the mother during nursing, and the fact that the flap is not continuously secured at the opposite edge permits a gaping opening if the wearer assumes certain positions and tends to reveal the non-genuine, camouflage nature of the flap. Moreover the elongate narrow opening behind the flap is insufficiently large for convenient access by the child to the mother's breast.
Accordingly, there is a need for an attractive outer garment appropriate for casual and working wear which provides both greater convenience and modesty for a nursing mother than prior garments while simultaneously disguising its nursing function in a highly attractive and effective manner.